What are the states doing?

My wife spoke with an AP reporter yesterday about the food recall. One question the reporter asked was whether the state veterinarians had asked local veterinarians to send in data on pets affected by the recall. Oregon’s state veterinarian has been collecting data in his state and released numbers earlier this week.

The reporter’s question got catmanager wondering about how the state veterinarians and state veterinary medical associations had responded to the pet food recall.

What I discovered was disappointing and might go a long way toward explaining why it’s been so hard to get official numbers: almost none of the states seem to want to collect the information (or if they do, they’re making it darned difficult to find out how and to whom to report data). I know Gina and the crew at Pet Connection have proposed a national, centralized system to which veterinarians could submit morbidity and mortality data during crises like the current one. This is a wonderful, long-overdue idea, and I urge pet owners to press the idea on their congressmen and -women. I also urge them to agitate at the state level. I see no reason why the states cannot develop their own reporting structures (perhaps in conjunction with the federal government). Doing so will allow local information to be disseminated more quickly (rather than waiting for the federal government to disaggregate data from around the country, states could release their own data) and will give states the information needed to more effectively manage crises like the present one. If you’re concerned about how the pet food recall has been handled, don’t forget to work for change at the local level as well as the national.

Before jumping into the results of my canvassing, some caveats:

Catmanager is not a member of any of the state veterinary medical associations. So I was unable to access the members-only sections of their Web sites. Sites that had no publicly available information about the recall might still have information that is only available to the members.

Also, although I have not heard reports of this happening, it is possible that some (or even all) state VMAs have contacted their members via e-mail, fax, or phone to alert them about the recall.

In most states the state veterinarian is a position within the department of agriculture. Not all states have Web pages specifically for the office of state veterinarian. I’ve done my best to identify the appropriate Web sites for all the state veterinarians, but I might have missed some and thus missed information about the recall on their Web site.

Furthermore, in many cases the state veterinarian’s primary responsibility is for food animals. Because of this, some might have deemed the pet food recall to be outside their purview and thus have made a conscious decision not to post information about it.

With caveats out of the way, onward to the data! As of 27 March,

24 state VMAs plus the Puerto Rico VMA provided (publicly accessible) information about the recall on their Web sites.

Of these, 16 included only links to other sites (typically the AVMA, Menu Foods, and the FDA); and 8 included at least some original content, such as a summary of the recall or a press release generated by the VMA.

In catmanager’s opinion, the Georgia and Oregon VMAs have done the best job of providing information to the public.

15 of the 50 state veterinarian Web sites (including Web sites of departments that comprise state veterinarians’s offices) provide publicly available information about the recall.

1 (Connecticut) addresses the need for the state veterinarian to work closely with the state VMA during the crisis

Only 3 (4 if you count Connecticut) discuss what the state is doing to respond to the crisis (in each case: spot checking retailers to make sure they’ve pulled the recalled pet food; in the case of Georgia: also conducting lab testing of the recalled food)

1 state (Vermont) asks veterinarians to report deaths and illnesses that they suspect are related to recalled food. (We know that Oregon has been collecting this data, but I couldn’t find on the Oregon state Web site where they invite veterinarians to submit data.

The data
The table that follows lists all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. From the left, the columns indicate state; whether I found publicly available information about the recall on the state VMA’s Web site; any comments I wanted to make about the state VMA’s Web site; whether I found information about the recall on the state veterinarian’s Web site (or the department or agency to which the state veterinarian’s office belongs); and any comments I wanted to make about the state vet’s Web site. To check out the state VMA Web sites, go here. To check out the state veterinarian Web sites, go here.

State

VMA mentions recall

Notes

State vet mentions recall

Notes

Ala.

no

no

Ak.

?

no Web site

no

Ariz.

yes

links to information elsewhere

no

Ark.

no

no

Cal.

yes

links to information elsewhere, plus a client information sheet created by the CVMA and a fact sheet for veterinarians supplied by Iams

no

Col.

yes

links to information elsewhere

no

Conn.

yes

links to AVMA advice to pet owners

yes

press release urging pet owners to check their pets’ food and the Dept of Ag to work closely w/CVMA to ensure the public is getting “accurate information” about the recall

Del.

no

no

D.C.

no

?

Fl.

yes

press release and links to information elsewhere

no

Geo.

yes

information for pet owners on main page; FAQ for pet owners; information for member veterinarians (not publicly accessible); one of the better responses

yes

a couple of hard-to-find press releases: one notes the state lab will be testing samples and inspectors will be checking that retailers comply with the recall

Like this:

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22 Responses to “What are the states doing?”

Called my congressman .. they where very helpfull
can’t say the same for the leeches that call themselves “vetenerians”? not 1 has reported an animal death, or they claim not from kidney failure. (seeing 2deaths in the local paper i know they’r lying). i called vets when my cat fell ill, they where happy to see my animal?
(prices range from $50to 3times that, just to walk thru the door?).. ny vma has no mention of
recalled foods,it’s still on the shelves in some stores! talk about greed??
man, i hate NY..

Hi – I am Diane From the Chicago area. I am a SERIOUS pet lover and own two cats. I came here to find that the state of IL (IL State Veterinary Medical Association) has posted NOTHNG about the pet food recall in our state! So…I called! Dissapointing surprise..I was the FIRST to call to complain. hmmmm…the phone number is (217) 523-8387. The Executive Director’s name is Peter S. Weber. Also his email address is peter@isvma.org. I left a message for him. We’ll see what happens. I will be putting heat on the IL state vet next! I am APPALED to say the least! I just found out that my cats ate 34 pouches of the recalled food! Arggg! We are on our way to the vet now!
Everyone needs to be eyes and BIG Mouths on getting that food OFF the shelves!

Thank you Diane, for the IL State Veterinary Medical Association’s Director’s phone number. I called and left a message with his assistant. My nearly 18yo Pomeranian died from recalled food, and I definietly want the information out.

[…] comments on this blog of people who have suffered losses, in addition to a great job catmanager did compiling a chart of which states are being proactive on the Menu Foods pet food recall front, […]

Thanks for the time and effort you put into compiling this chart. It definitely inspired me to do a bit more checking on who to contact…thanks. Btw, have linked to this blog entry from my blog. If that’s not cool, just let me know. Guess I should have asked when I did it before, too…oops!

[…] for further reporting to the FDA. This recommendation is no longer on the AVMA site. From this post at vetcetera, it’s pretty obvious why: Most states were not prepared to either share or collect […]

This is the first time in years I am proud of
my home state. At least Georgia is getting
something right. I have run a boarding kennel and grooming shop for 37 years, write a pet
column in local paper and have a tv show. I
have been doing articles/and 2 shows since 3/16/07 trying to get people to pay attention.
This Wednesday a pet owner who lost an animal to the pet food who wants the public to raise an outcry to the state and see that they inform Washington we are happy.
Thank you for the information that you are
giving us.

Thank you for your effort in compiling this information. As
an entrepreneur who started Luxepets after the transition of a much loved pet, I can relate to the feelings and sentiments felt by many. I am not sure where to start, but I just want to offer a small token of love to those who’ve lost and…to affirm the power of love in the healing process.
I would like to donate in loving memory pet candles to the first 50 to assist in the healing process. Please enter loving50 at checkcout on our website, http://www.luxepets.com . Feel free to pass this onto your feline friends. We are also offering 20% off all purchases of any of our memorial products through the month of April. Please enter lxp20 at checkout. Thanks again for your post, and your efforts. Peace + blessings, claire

I have a dog who has eaten the recalled food and been sick with kidney damage. I kept all my reciepts and verified them online at menufoods.com. Don’t know if my dog will survive. I have enormous anger that menufoods waited before letting the public know of this toxic food. Many animals suffering could have been prevented.I am in Arizona and plan to contact my congressmen by phone and email. We need some laws changed and some investigation into this.

Does anyone know how much of the tainted food a cat has to eat to be affected? We use dry food, but bought a few cans of the wet for a special treat. One of our cats ate a whole can over the course of a few days. Is that enough to be a problem or does it take continuous use? Thanks for any help.

Karen, no one knows for sure. It will depend on several factors including amount of contaminant in the food (foods with higher wheat gluten content might have more contaminant), sensitivity of your cat, and underlying health of its kidneys. If your cat was eating recalled food, it should be seen by a veterinarian for a blood test and urinalysis.

Is anyone seeing mouth ulcers as the main ailment of cats who ate chunky food with gravy/wheat gluten? We have many cats who have had to have all of their teeth removed due to this. Young cats-average age is 3 or 4. We were using a food described above; a brand that is NOT on the recall list. Early in April we switched brands and the mouth ulcers are disappearing.

Just recently I have looked around for some little more information on Eukanuba. Is it really that the base is comprised of soya? Clearly there’s additional things such as chicken/beef included, but it doesn’t sound like a good start.